Martin Luther King III to Speak at Million Worker March, October 17, 2004, in Washington, DC

Coretta Scott King and Martin
Luther King III have endorsed the Million Worker March on Washington on October 17. Martin Luther King
III will stand in the footsteps of his father at the Lincoln Memorial on
October 17 and address the mass mobilization.The declaration of support by Coretta Scott
King will be presented.

The Million Worker March will also feature
presentations by Reverend E. Randall Osburn,
Executive Vice President of the Southern Christian Leadership Foundation, and a
close collaborator of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and by Dick
Gregory, the noted social activist and associate of Dr. King.

The call for the Million Worker March was initiated
by International Longshore Workers Union Local 10.
The presence of the family of Dr. King is a fitting moral and political
expression of historical continuity.

On September 21, 1967, Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. made a moving presentation at the hall of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10. The ILWU Dispatcher
reported on September 29, 1967,

“Referring to labor history, King noted that the
civil rights sit-in movement was actually invented by the labor movement, and
we have to keep on sitting-in at factory gates, at the steps of Congress and
even in front of the White House.”

Dr. King was made an honorary member of the ILWU
Local 10. At the presentation, Dr. King appeared with William “Bill” Chester,
who had become the first major African-American official of the ILWU as
International Vice President, a direct consequence of the civil rights movement’s infusion within the labor movement itself.

On October 15, 1967, Dr. King spoke at the
Oakland Coliseum to be followed by performances of Harry Belafonte and Joan
Baez in launching a seven-city concert tour in support of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference.

The linkage of the struggle for civil rights
with that of the labor movement and of opposition to the devastating war on Vietnam led Dr. King to march and mobilize on
behalf of the sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dr. King announced a Poor People’s Campaign that
would culminate in Poor People’s March on Washington with demands for an Economic Bill
of Rights guaranteeing employment and a living wage, national economic support
for those unable to work and decent housing for all.

He was assassinated on April 4, 1968 as he
prepared a march in support of sanitation and other municipal employees.

The Mission Statement of the Million Worker
March declares:

“Thirty-six years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. summoned working people across America
to a Poor People’s March on Washington
to inaugurate “‘a war on poverty at home.’ ‘The United States government,’ he
proclaimed, ‘is one of the greatest purveyors of violence in the world. America is at a
crossroads in history and it is critically important for us as a nation and
society to choose a new path and to move on it with resolution and courage.’

“Working people are under siege while new wars
of devastation are launched at the expense of the poor everywhere.

“The Million Worker March will revive and expand
a great struggle for fundamental change, as we forge together a social,
economic and political movement that will transform America.”